Edmonton Skyline via HDR?

[gravy]

this would be the first HDR I've done that I find 'worthy' of posting here... so, what do you guys think? comp? over saturated? Please! go nuts! tell me what I can do better!!

 

[Sw1tchFX]

WOW! Looks like a corrected fisheye, I hope you shot it with a fisheye, becuase that would just give it more of that wow factor. But nonetheless I think it's fantastic for the exception that the overall tone is uneven and the sun is overexposed too much, and than you burned it to make it a grey.

I tweaked contrast, tweaked levels, added a gaussien blur to make it less harsh and added the border to give it the finished look.

 

[EOS_JD]

Sky looks amazing but the thing that annoys me about this is the shadows on the tops of the buildings. You have to zoom in close to mask out the darker image and obviously be careful of creating haloes. The bush to the left looks oddly dark too compared to the rest of the image.

I'm not a fan of HDR but with some more work this could be very nice. Was this 3 separate exposures or 3 images from one RAW?

 

[LeighAnn]

Great wide angle. I like the clouds better in the first one...not as washed out as the second. Very nicely done, Gravy

 

[BoblyBill]

WOW! Looks like a corrected fisheye, I hope you shot it with a fisheye, becuase that would just give it more of that wow factor. But nonetheless I think it's fantastic for the exception that the overall tone is uneven and the sun is overexposed too much, and than you burned it to make it a grey.

I tweaked contrast, tweaked levels, added a gaussien blur to make it less harsh and added the border to give it the finished look.

I pretty much agree with everything that Switch said. Though the sun WILL be overexposed, I think that you burned it too much. That was the place of the picture that I saw first and I had a hard time looking at the rest of the picture because my eyes were drawn to that overly burned area. I would like to say, though; I love the compostion of this picture. The focus you put on the sky was just about the perfect amount.

 

[Big Mike]

Now there is something that looks familiar. I like it (the first version) except for the section of sky where the sun should be. We can see the sunlight on the clouds below...but then there are holes in the clouds and it's just grey sky...looks very off. I think Switch's version fixes that.

 

[gravy]

thanks for the tips guys. I like the edit too.

unfortunately, this was just the 18-55 kit, at it's widest. all I did was use three jpegs and throw em in photomatix, and then use the tone mapping. great program - super easy to use. I also cropped it in LR.

now comes my question -

you guys are using the term 'burn'. are you talking about the burn tool in PS? I didn't use PS at all on this one, so I'm confused as to how I may have burned out that area... I do agree that it's overexposed, but I'm confused about the burn.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

the burn tool in photoshop is destructive, I use layer masks and the paintbrush.

 

[wings777]

The colors are awesome. I love the different colors in the sky expecially, but I feel that the small patch of grass in the lower left distracts me a little.